Is Home Access testing enough?

[Helpme219]

Hi Dr. H:

Thanks for your words of advice. They've been a great comfort to me. I'd like to know you thoughts on whether or not I've performed "due diligence" and can finally and fully put my experience behind me. Here goes. In early March 2006, I arranged a meeting with a male escort (I'm a guy too). No anal whatsoever, brief oral both ways for a very short time, but no ejaculation and no pre-*** that I could see or otherwise tell.
He told me he gets tested every three months: All negative from Summer of 2005 through and including April 2006 (I called him a couple of months later to see if his story was consistent. He told me he was tested in April 2006, a month after we met, without me prompting him to reveal a particular month). Anyway, I called Home Access and ordered their HIV home test. At six weeks after my meeting with the escort the results were Negative. I'm now officially past the 'majic' 3 months and did another HIV home test. I expect to be Negative again. Given that Home Access says it uses Second Generation tests and that its testing regime continues to enjoy the confidence of the Federal government, my question is this: have I done enough?

I'm not the basket case I was three months ago when I started surfing the net for answers, but I want to put the lingering threat of Sero-Conversion to rest for good, to make sure the off-chance that the "small" chance of HIV exposure through receptive oral (giving the BJ) is my undoing. I know that you say that a Negative test at 6 weeks should be considered "highly reassuring", but is a negative test at 3 months an air-tight lock?
Like anyone else, I want to move on with my life. I need to know: Is self-testing enough to confidently say I'm Negative and that's that? I guess part of me thinks a test of the magnitude were talking here needs to be done by somebody wearing a white coat with "MD" or "RN" on their nametag.

Thanks again for all your help.

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

There is virtually zero chance of you having HIV, based both on the the low risk nature of the exposure you describe and the testing you already have had.  When your 3-month test comes back negative, which it will, you can be absolutely, 100% confident you weren't infected in early March.

Good luck--  HHH, MD

[steve05]

i also took a 6-week home access test.  I would like to know how accurate the doc might believe that to be.

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

I understand that the Home Access company uses a standard "second generation" antibody test that is widely used in other labs.  All tests, regardless of "generation", are equally accurate (95-98%) by 6 weeks.

HHH, MD